Once Upon a Time, magic used to exist in the world. At least, that's what everyone believed back then. Today, we all know better; there's no such thing as magic.

That's what we've all heard, at least. The truth is, there used to be magic in our world. Another world existed alongside ours, that was filled with magic, and it had free communion with our own. And then, for whatever reason, at some point over a thousand years ago, the link was severed and the magical world drifted apart from our own, and we've been stuck with nothing but science ever since.

Only one guy knows about all this, much to his chagrin. You see, he's from Earth. Just an average college kid from Seattle, when one day, for some utterly inexplicable reason, he found himself instantly transported to the magical world. With no idea how he got there, no way to get back, none of the resources or basic technological infrastructure he needs to have a comfortable life in a Standard Fantasy Setting, and precious little in the way of relevant skills, he turns to the only two assets he has available: his wits, and the Twist, a mysterious ability that allows him to break magic by touch.

Taking on the name of "Paul Twister," he finds his power makes him highly in demand as a thief because he can break magical wards protecting valuable items, and over time he builds up quite a bit of notoriety. This is where our story begins.

The Lay of Paul Twister is a Web novel by an author who goes by the somewhat Punny Name of "Anthony Peers." It starts with Paul taking what looks like an unusually simple job: break a magic seal on an item that the prospective employer already has in his possession. But then things go wrong when he finds out the "item" is a person, and he finds himself slowly being drawn into the middle of a tangle of plots and schemes involving wizards, angels, dragons, and the truth about the two worlds...

"Well, I think I'll be a bit too busy for any such distractions. And besides, it would be like taking advantage of a drunken girl."

He looked just a bit impressed when I said that. "You're a better man than many, if you see that as a thing to avoid."

Aerith and Bob: Actually used as a (subtle) plot point: Most of the human characters have standard English names like Paul, Sarah, or Patrick, but then there's Archmagus Ken'tu Kel, head of the Circle of Magi. Gerald says that several things about him are suspicious, including his name which "sounds like something out of an ancient saga." Turns out that's because he spent a couple decades on Earth, where time flows at a different pace.

Aliens Speaking English: Handwaved. The people on the magical world are humans (mostly; other races are mentioned but we don't see very much of them) but they have a completely different language. Paul has no trouble communicating with them, though. Through some mechanism that's never quite explained, he perceives everything he hears as English, and his words likewise come across intelligibly to whoever's listening. He does note that whatever's doing the translating doesn't seem to care about mouth movement, and watching anyone speak makes him feel like he's in a bad kung fu movie.

Blessed with Suck: It also means that, as he has no idea what the spoken language is actually like, he's completely unable to learn the written language based on it, and so is left illiterate.

Anti-Villain: Archmagus Ken'Tu Kel turns out to be a type III. Paul doesn't actually think there's anything wrong with his "evil plan" except for the way he's going about it and his clear and remorseless willingness to "break a few eggs" along the way.

The dragons, on the other hand, really didn't like the idea and manipulated Paul into taking him down in order to preserve the status quo.

Automaton Horses: Strongly averted. Horses are mammals that get worn out and have to be cared for properly.

Cool Horse: Much to Paul's chagrin, right after he narrates up a big rant about how silly and unrealistic the Automaton Horses trope is, Aylwyn introduces him to her celestial horse, Wyntaf, who he admits looks like she could probably hold her own against a car. Although even Wyntaf has limits.

Big Bad: It turns out that the Archmagus Ken'tu Kel was the one causing most of the trouble for Paul and Aylwyn since the book started.

Downplayed somewhat: when Paul finds out that his "evil plan" is to reunite the worlds, Paul doesn't really think it's such a bad thing. It's his callous attitude towards the suffering and chaos that would surely ensue when people find out what's happened that make Paul realize he has to find a way to stop it.

But He Sounds Handsome: Paul loves this trope. Under an alias, he composed a folk song for bards to sing about his exploits (though it's mostly a bunch of cultural references for anyone else from Earth trapped here to pick up on), and when Gerald disparages the research he's heard is going on at Stark Academy, Paul steps up and explains how he's met the guy in charge (one of Paul's alter-egos) and he's actually pretty awesome.

Car Fu: Used in the climax to break the shield spell that Ken'tu Kel has erected around the ritual.

Cat Girl: The first time Paul meets Sarah, she's just fallen victim to a magical curse that turns her into one.

Chivalrous Pervert: Paul is stuck at a physical age of 19, and frequently finds it difficult (and distracting) to deal with his strong attraction towards any pretty girl that happens to catch his eye. But he's also quite aware of the problems that acting on these feelings would cause for him, and he manages to consistently keep it all under control. (Mostly.)

Consummate Liar: Paul tries to be this. Some times it works better than others.

Cool Old Guy: Gerald Wolf is an older wizard who Paul befriended as part of his backstory. According to Paul, he's the closest he's seen to actually looking like the wizard stereotype... just a lot heavier. "Imagine if they'd cast Santa Claus in the role of Gandalf." He's primarily a healer, and when Paul shared the principles of Germ Theory with him, he went on to use that knowledge to help a lot of people.

Distressed Damsel: Subverted very strongly in the opening. When Paul finds a woman being held prisoner in a dungeon, he tries to help her by setting her free, only to find out that she's actually a powerful paladin who let herself get captured in order to find out her captor's plans. She claims she could have escaped at any time, if the time had been right.

Fantasy Gun Control: Paul refuses to do any technological research in this area. Also, it turns out that the invention of gunpowder was what caused the dragons to separate this world from Earth in the first place, and they're actively keeping the knowledge of it suppressed. Ryell claims it's for the sake of peace; Paul believes that the real reason is that technological weapons would give mankind an easy way to slay dragons.

I have no illusions of raising this place to a 21st century standard of living, or even a 20th century one. I'm no Connecticut Yankee, just a Seattle Geek who happens to know a few things about the way things work. ... For example, I know that spinning a magnet around inside a coil of copper wire produces an electric current. But how strong of a magnet? How big does it have to be, and how fast does it have to spin, before you get anything useful? Does the size of the coil of wire relative to the magnet matter? Does the number of loops in the coil matter? We're rediscovering all these things from first principles.

Genius Bruiser: Aylwyn is easily the strongest, toughest character in the story physically, but she also exhibits Roy-grade intelligence and deductive reasoning skills. She's a bit surprised by Paul's repeated surprise when she manages to figure out something that seems obvious to her, such as that Paul is from another world or that the driver's seat in a car is special and only Paul would be able to sit there.

Half-Human Hybrids: Sarah is an interesting twist on this trope: she's half-human. (What the other half is changes from day to day.)

I Have Many Names: Paul goes by several aliases in different parts of the kingdom, where he has apparently established actual identities for each of them. The names he picks tend to be the secret identities of superheroes, such as Clark Kent and Peter Parker, in the hopes of stealthily alerting other people from "back home" that they're not alone and trying to get them to seek him out. (It actually worked at one point, though it's implied that the person seeking him out has been around a long time, and so he's not the first person from Earth to be stranded there.)

At one point in the narration, he remarks that "Paul's not my real name," which apparently he doesn't tell anyone, because real names have power and he's mostly in the business of screwing over powerful magic-users.

I Need a Freaking Drink: Subverted. Patrick thinks Paul is invoking this trope when he says, at a particularly low point, that he needs some alcohol. What he actually wants is pure ethanol to run his car on—the only way to cover 200 miles fast enough to stop the Big Bad.

Ryell: You have a woman you love, a woman who loves you... It is a shame they are not the same woman, true, but all in all you have a life most would envy.

Paul: Sarah doesn't love me; she hardly knows me.

Ryell: She will.

Mage Tower: A lot of powerful wizards have their own Wizards' Tower, to the point where it's considered a bit surprising when April doesn't have one. There's also a tower at Stark Academy, which functions as a research center. Exactly what purpose the towers serve is never quite explained.

Magitek: The Magi use magic mirrors as essentially a magical Skype system. Fiona Khal even has a travel-sized one that she carries around with her.

Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Subverted. Paul thinks of this trope the first time he hears about the wizard Gerald Wolf, but apparently it's just a name; he actually turns out to be one of the genuinely nicest guys around.

Not Growing Up Sucks: Paul was 19 when he got pulled into the fantasy world he's been trapped in ever since. Ten years later, he's still 19, physically, and rather resentful about it. This is technically closer to Immortality Begins at Twenty in terms of physical age, but Paul's attitude towards it is purely this trope, mostly because he's too young for many people to take seriously, (not that he doesn't take advantage of that at times,) and because his teen-level hormones are hard to keep under control sometimes.

Out with a Bang: Paul freaks out a little when he wakes up and finds a nymph has found her way into his tent in the middle of the night, because they apparently have a propensity for doing this.

Paul (narrating): There are worse ways to go, I suppose, but I've still got a bunch of living left to do, thank you very much!

Post-Modern Magik: Magical shielding spells act like Some Kind of Force Field, and can be broken if opposed by enough energy to overcome their force. When a renegade wizard has conjured up one too powerful for the team's magic to break through, Paul decides to try the kinetic energy of a two-ton automobile moving at over 60 MPH, which of course packs quite a punch!

He survives this by using magic designed to cushion someone in a fall from a high height, since deceleration trauma is deceleration trauma, no matter which direction it occurs along. Interestingly enough, it's Gerald who comes up with that idea, not Paul.

Running Gag: Paul trying to social-engineer his way past guards by pretending to be a messenger with an important message for some important person, only to find out that the person isn't actually available.

Invoking a magic mirror (see Magitek, above) always seems to involve a silly rhyming couplet of the "Mirror, mirror on the wall" variety.

Sequel Hook: In the epilogue, Ryell reveals to Paul that magic was never taken from Earth; only the knowledge of how to use it, and apparently Ken'tu Kel left behind some documents that someone is going to find and study, and eventually use to cross over from Earth. A sequel called The Fate Of Paul Twister continues the story.

Likewise, Patrick Hill mentions his friend April, who he believes is from the same place as Paul. When he tells Paul that her name is April O'Neil, it takes a moment for him to get the reference, because it was a bit before his time. (It's implied that she's been there a lot longer than he has, and was probably taken from Earth sometime during The Nineties.)

In the first chapter, he pulls out a Darth Vader quote, fully aware that no one's going to get the reference, just to make himself sound Badass.

In one of the flashback chapters, when his power was first discovered and it accidentally injures someone with its chaotic side effects, he makes up a history for himself on the spur of the moment, based (very loosely) on a gender-swapped version of Marie from the first X-Men film. When the guy suggests that his power could be used on purpose for personal gain, he reacts fairly strongly:

I scowled at him. "You want to turn me into some sort of rogue? To use my power to steal something?"

When confronted with a skeleton that turns out to be a fake, planted to distract them, Paul calls it a kandra. When Aylwyn asks what that is, Paul says it's just something out of a tale he heard once, about a creature with strange bones that is not what it looks like.

Multiple Star Trek references throughout the plot, including April using a TNG episode reference as a secret message.

When Paul makes an embarrassing slip of the tongue in front of Aylwyn, he ends up doubling down on it and fast-talking her into believing what he said was perfectly reasonable. According to his narration, this technique is known as a Westen gambit.

Fiona Khal brings along 12 soldiers when she tracks down and captures Paul to recruit him (a thief) to plunder the lair of a dragon. Paul remarks in the narration that the scenario has an honorable pedigree.

Paul first arrived on the magical world while he was just driving to the store. Suddenly he was somewhere else entirely, "And I wasn't even going 88 miles per hour!" He even takes the name Marty McFly as his first pseudonym.

In another flashback, Paul describes how his lack of resources and societally-useful skills left him with no way to make a living besides his work as a mercenary thief.

Paul:(Narrating) You know how it goes. [[Disney/Aladdin Gotta eat to live, gotta steal to eat, tell ya all about it when I got the time...]]

When pushing himself to the limits of his (and his horses') endurance to help a friend in trouble:

At one point Paul needs a fake coded message to try to get in to see somebody, and he uses a couple of lines from a Dragonlance novel.

The Chessmaster: Fiona Khal sees herself as one, though she has an interesting take on it:

"And now you want me to work for you, against [the dragon who had hired Paul to steal from her]?" I asked, trying not to look too bemused. "It's a strange game, where Black and White both move the same pawn!"

She laughed. "I've always lamented the lack of mercenaries on the chessboard. It would bring whole new levels of strategy to the game!"

The Magic Goes Away: Part of the backstory. The magical world was separated from Earth, long enough ago that Earth has become mythical to them.

The Unreveal: In-universe example. Paul knows why Ken'tu Kel's plan failed despite the oracle's prophecy, but he refuses to tell him so as to not give him the satisfaction of knowing.

Sarcastic Confession: Paul uses these a few times to get out of questions that would make trouble for him if the other person knew the truth.

Sympathetic Magic: Something like this apparently exists. Having something that used to be a part of someone can be used to provide "a material link" to them for a magical ritual. Also, having the bones of a dead dragon in your possession can apparently be used to prepare spells that can defend against other dragons.

This Is Gonna Suck: Paul's reaction when, upon getting caught by an Archmage who ought to have every reason to throw him in some dungeon somewhere, she instead recruits him (with a bit of arm-twisting) for a quest to go loot a dragon's lair.

Title Drop: The song that Paul composed for the bards to sing about him is known as The Lay of Paul Twister.

Trojan Prisoner: Aylwyn allowed herself to be captured by a renegade wizard so she could learn about his plans through reverse interrogation.

Unobtanium: Aluminum. Being from modern-day Earth, Paul finds this amusing.

Chocolate is apparently rare enough that Aylwyn is shocked when Paul gets his hands on some. (This doesn't stop him from purchasing some more later on in the story, but that was in a major city, which they hadn't been to any of since their journey began.)

What the Hell, Hero?: Aylwyn drops an epic one on Paul when he has Gerald forcibly summon her from wherever she was so she can help them fight the Big Bad, except that she had figured out his plan on her own and was moments away from stopping him herself!

Subverted: It's later revealed that her plan would not have worked, since Ken'tu Kel had demons on his side that would have been able to stop her, and the summons, rather than being the Nice Job Breaking It, Hero that she thought, may well have saved her life.

Year Inside, Hour Outside: It's implied that there's some time difference of this sort going on between the two worlds, which may be responsible for Paul and April's slow aging: their bodies are (somehow) still on Earth time.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy